Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Amongst Thieves Review

Plot: A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers embark on an epic quest to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.

Film: Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Amongst Thieves

Directors: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Writers: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Michael Gilio

Starring: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis

Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Amongst Thieves follows Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), who after a stint in prison, are trying to get Edgin’s daughter back from former conman Forge (Hugh Grant), who has decided he likes fatherhood and has poisoned Kira (Chloe Coleman) against them. Also joining the band are sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith) and Tiefling Doric (Sophia Lillis). Ranger Xenk (Regé-Jean Page) doesn’t directly join the group but helps along the way. 

The casting of the film was just perfect for creating that rag-tag band of heroes that you’d expect for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. If you’ve ever played DnD, a lot of the references in the film will be familiar and much like the tabletop game, no one takes themselves too seriously with some silly dialogue and an overweight dragon, trust me it’s good. However, you definitely don’t need to know anything about DnD as there’s a perfect blend of character building and action that really keeps the pace of the film moving forward and its over two-hour runtime just flies by. 

As this is The Northern Film Blog, I can’t not mention the fact that for this film a lot of the castle scenes were filmed here in the North of England. Alnwick Castle, famously known for being used as Hogwarts in Harry Potter, for the scene of Edgin and Holga riding up to Neverwinter, the scene of Edgin playing his lute inside the grounds and upon research, they filmed in the surrounding grounds too. Very cool for any Northerner. 

My one gripe with the film, without spoiling too much of the plot, is that there is an almost main character death which isn’t nearly as emotional as it should be as it’s well known to the audience that the group possess a tablet of resurrection, intended for another purpose, but there is no doubt that they won’t use the tablet for character in question instead. This is the only downside to the rest of the film being so fun and silly, when it came down to needing to be serious, I had no belief one of my favourite characters was going to die, I did however expect the film to suddenly pull a move like The Lego Movie and pull us to the ‘real world’ and have a group of friends sat round a table playing DnD and arguing about said character getting stabbed. That probably would have made this a five-star film for me. 

That being said, I think the way the film ended leaves it open for there to be a sequel in the future, ensemble casts like this do really well and I know there’ll be more actors who want to try the fantasy genre in a less serious way. Even if you aren’t a huge fan of fantasy, I think you’ll appreciate this one.